Aqib hoisted Subjek through Sampah's streets by his arms, holding under the bandaged man's shoulder with one hand while holding his sack with his other arm. As insurance, Aqib made sure to disarm the bandaged man, snatching his knife from his rope belt tossing it into the sack. He trudged through the city in big, impatient strides, leaving Subjek struggling to keep up from behind, tripping over his feet every few steps. The bandaged man gave no voice of complaint throughout the whole ordeal, and Aqib found solace in that one relief. Everything else was a reluctant compromise under his superior's command. The man didn't hide the fact that more than anything, he wanted the bandaged stranger to leave Sampah.

Still, orders were orders. To Aqib, they were as absolute as the sun-bleached sky and the dirt between the soles of his boots. Boss told him to give Subjek a vacant room, a vacant room Subjek will receive.

Aqib escorted Subjek through the streets of Sampah. Night had fallen hours ago. Under the presence of the moonlight, the streets had their noises cut in half. It didn’t mean that the city was dead. If anything, Sampah is known to be the eternal sun of civilization, though the last word was used on very loose terms. Instead of stalls and hawkers, the action now resided behind rubbles of the fallen buildings and back alleys, shrouded beneath shadows, their figures reduced to silhouettes. Their activities resided near late-closing bars and canteens, where their sounds would be masked beneath the hustle and bustle coming from the establishments.

Stumbling across the streets were flocks tipsy drunkards, crossing the bodies on tipped toes as they struggled to even stay upright. Sometimes a straggler would pass out right then and there on the asphalt, and stay there. If they brought comrades, they’d either help them up with varying degrees of success. Those were rare cases. The common occurrence has a passerby cross the wrong foot and step on a chest or a groin with their boots, leading to a cry of pain from the victim, followed by a barrage of complaints on both ends before concluding in a begrudging standoff that more often than not, ended in a slew of vomit descending on a poor, undeserved soul. If luck may have it, it might even be a mutual defeat. Most of the inebriates belonged to Sampah’s defensive forces enjoying their time off their shifts. Duty calls, but louder than that was the innate, instinctual desires for human pleasure, especially during off-duty hours

Still, there was at least one immune to its temptation.

Aqib dragged Subjek towards a fork on the road. The former led the latter down a turn heading towards the more remote corners of Sampah. There, the only lights present were the afterglow from the main area behind them, and the illuminated window frames from the buildings spying on them from above. Some had people on them, leaning against the stills, smoking, drinking, or simply watching in silence as the two passed them by without so much of an acknowledgement to each other’s presence. The scent of the area was staler than before. The smell of dust, dirt, grit and rusted metal took hold of the surrounding air. It didn't seem like a population living in a city but rather, a dead city with isolated strangers taking solitary refuge within its decrepit walls.

A structure emerged from the far end of the road.

A short building, nestled between uninhabited towers and former skyscrapers. It had a concrete compound in front of its entrance, with multiple stilts sitting in order at the middle, suspending a roof that had half its top torn upwards into solidified shards, revealing a hollow interior within.

The stilts had machines sitting next to them in the form of flat, standing stations with several small cracked screens and missing buttons. They stood in order, with a caravan-sized space sitting in between each machine. Some had gun-shaped pumps with dipping, crooked barrels sitting on stands fixed onto the sides. Thick, black pipes connected the pumps to the bottom half of the machines. A few only had one half of the combination, while others had none at all. The paint on the machines had been worn by prolonged weathering but numbers could still be seen imprinted onto the sides. It was a safe assumption to make that whatever these machines were made for had long since lost that purpose.

Aqib tugged Subjek past the machines and towards the main building sitting behind the machines. It was a small, one-storey concrete structure with many doors and window frames. The latter were all sealed and welded shut with sheet metal. The former was given the same treatment, save for the one in the middle which had a reinforced, double iron door fixed into it. The whole thing had wide bolts running across its frame, with signs of dried soot tracing around the many heads. There was a viewport that sat eye-levelled with Subjek. Aqib had to duck down to see through it.

The man gave three heavy knocks on the iron door.

There was silence for a few seconds.

The viewport slid open, revealing a set of dark, tired eyes on the other side.

“It’s me,” Aqib proclaimed.

A voice from behind the iron door emerged. It was just as deep and ridden with fatigue as the pupils that greeted Aqib and Subjek’s arrival on the other side of the viewport, “Who’s me?”

“Abdus, Almighty willing, if you don’t open this door right now I’ll stick you with outskirts patrol duty for six weeks.”

The voice scoffed, “You wish. It’s Trading Season. I’m booked in three weeks.”

“You want to test me, Abdus?”

There was a moment of silence.

Then the viewport was slid shut, followed by a thick, heavy click from behind the double iron doors. It swung open, revealing a lanky, dark-skinned man with a shaved head and a hunched back. He dressed in the standard-issued fading green jumpsuit and helmet with a baton snapped onto the side of his belt, ready to be whipped out for an easy punishment. He also had perpetual bags circling his eyes that were somehow darker than his already burnt complexion.

Abdus let Aqib and Subjek in, “It’s just a joke, damn.”

"I'm not here to see a comedy," Aqib walked through the doorway, dragging Subjek and his sack from behind.

Abdus muttered under his breath, "Maybe you're just no fun."

Aqib caught his words as clear as day, "Ten weeks."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Okay, okay," Abdus surrendered, "I'm sorry."

Within the building was a barren floor; barren, except with filth. All manners of dried bodily fluids and dried mud and dirt, whether blown in from the open doorway or introduced by visiting pairs of shoes, formed many layers on the ground. One could step in with fresh boots and come out with footwear that had aged through years in just a few minutes of exposure to the elements. The walls too were untouched, with more substances introduced to its surface than there were ever removed, each more unsavoury than the last. You could smell the dank, mould-stained history of the place with a few breaths. The only grace the building had laid on its ceiling, which had strands of dust hanging off from the top culminating from inactivity.

The structure itself had had work done to it. There was an unusual layout and some obvious pillars sticking out where it shouldn’t belong, indicating a makeshift conversion of the building’s original purpose. The space had been sectioned off into several rooms. The biggest room sat in the middle of everything, with the only entrance-cum-exit being the reinforced double iron doors on the building’s main doorway. It had no more than a desk and a chair with its back turned against the entrance. The only light source came from an overhanging light bulb that seemed more concerned in brightening itself more so than it did with the room.

Everything else was cells walled off with iron bars and gates, with thickset locks and chains coiling the two together with an ancient, immovable grip. Behind the iron bars were no more than a few moulding sheets of cardboard sheets laying on the ground next to buckets that hadn’t seen clean fluids for who knew how long. All of them were vacant, save for one, which had a figure laying on the cardboard sheets, facing the wall with its sweat-stained back exposed to the elements. The figure wore plain grey clothes, though it was uncertain whether the colour belonged to the fabric itself or that it came from another source. Its hair was curled, long, and unkempt, with many strands sticking onto one another as they frayed across the floor. It didn’t move, nor did it make a sound. It blended so well with the room that it seemed to just be a part of the scenery, tethering over the fine line of being neither dead nor alive.

Aqib dragged Subjek towards the cell sitting opposite of the only occupied one in the building. He turned towards Abdus. No words were exchanged between the two. Abdus trudged towards the desk in the middle, reached into one of its drawers, and pulled out a thick, rusted ring of keys. He shoved past the two and undid the locks on the gate, opening up the cell.

Aqib shoved Subjek through the open gate. The bandaged man staggered for a few steps before regaining his balance. He turned around, standing in place as he faced both Aqib and Abdus from inside the cell. He remained just as silent as to when he was first hoisted through the doorway.

Abdus pulled a frown, “Creepy.”

“Tell me about it,” Aqib shrugged off Subjek’s sack and tossed it onto the desk in the middle of the room.

Abdus turned towards Aqib, “Another Tengkoda goon?”

“He’s no one,” Aqib began walking off towards the open doorway leading outside, “Claimed to survive a caravan raid from Tengkoda. Brought their gun with him too.”

Abdus did a double-take, glancing towards the bandaged man for a second before looking back at the Aqib, “That’s impossible.”

“I know,” Aqib grabbed onto both ends of the open double doors, “We’ve dispatched salvage to pick the pieces. Returning recon says he’s clean, but fuck if I’m trusting his mug. If something comes up, we’ll just hang him on the spot.”

“Why can’t we hang him now?”

“Boss’s order.”

“Can’t you just convince her in bed or something?”

Aqib’s voice lowered to a growl, “Twelve weeks.”

“Right, right,” Abdus raised both his arms, “What do I do with goggle boy here now?”

“Boss’s order was to give him a room,” Aqib shrugged, “And I gave him a room.”

“Do I lock the gate?”

“Boss only said to give him a room,” Aqib then closed the double iron doors behind him as he left, but not before leaving Abdus with a “The rest is your call.”

With that, Aqib was gone, leaving no more than pale, dirt-caked bootprints on the floor leading in and out of the building. Abdus sighed and walked up towards the double doors, redoing the locks Aqib couldn’t be bothered to secure when he left. Abdus then turned back towards the cell, where Subjek still stood, staring at him in complete silence.

Abdus snorted, “What are you, queer?”

Subjek gave no response, keeping the viewports of his goggles square on the tired man.

Abdus kept a stern eye on the bandaged man as he walked up to his cell, kicking the gate close and locking it tight. He made extra wraps between the gate and the bars with the chains, just in case. He slogged then towards the desk, throwing the keys back into the drawers as he plopped himself down onto the chair. He sat there in silence for a second before drawing eyes towards the sack Aqib threw onto the desk just moments earlier. He gave the thing a curious gaze for a few seconds before his intentions manifested, tossing his arms onto it, reaching towards the tied mouth.

Abdus opened it up, only to find an assortment of books, trinkets, dried food supplies, and a dented canteen sitting within. He rummaged through the sack some more and found a dagger inside, fixed into a scabbard. He felt his palms across the grip. He could tell there had been a degree of use given to it. He dropped the dagger back into the sack and drew the sack off the desk, juggling its contents as he felt it by its mouth.

Something else was unearthed from the pile.

A small, rusting lunchbox, complete with heavy metal clasps and paint peeling off its surface.

It caught Abdus’s attention. The thing seemed more suited to be in the dirt-covered hands of a child along with his collection of broken, and not in the same sack as a used dagger and some yellowed, oxidized journals. He reached in and pulled the lunchbox out. It was quite heavy, contrary to his expectations. He drew it next to his ear and shook it. There was no sound, but he could feel an inflexible weight shifting across one side to another as he wriggled it around in his palm. His guess for what the lunchbox held crept ever closer towards the presence of sand, though that began to call the question of why the hell one would put sand in a lunchbox and carry them around along with their travelling essentials. His curiosity ended there. He dropped the lunchbox back into the sack, tying the mouth back up before tossing it under the desk. He figured if there’s anyone that would carry a box of sand across a wasteland, it’ll probably be the guy in the cell.

Abdus glanced up to check on the guy in the cell.

Subjek was still standing there, staring at Abdus.

The tired man felt an invigorating chill run down his spine, “Sit down, will you?”

Subjek didn’t answer Abdus’s orders right away. The bandaged man kept his gaze on the tired man for a few more seconds before drawing his head towards the ground. Then he bent his knees, planted his bottom on the ground, crossed his legs, and continued mirroring Abdus’s frightened face onto the viewports of his goggles.

Abdus felt his heart cringe out of unease, “Freak.”

He turned his chair around and kicked his feet up onto the now emptied surface of the table. He slid his back against the chair, balanced it on two legs, crossed his arm, and closed his eyes, returning to the favourite past-time of his shift; the practise he’d been conducting before Aqib came in with an interruption - a nap.

Just before he could let himself drift off into unconsciousness, he drew a furtive glance towards Subjek once more.

Still, even sitting cross-legged on the floor, he was still staring at him from behind the goggles.

Abdus closed his eyes again, muttered some prayers, put his faith in the strength of the chains and locks holding the gates and began to snore.